Gar Barusch
by Denise Felt
Summary: A crashed UFO on a distant planet has a survivor: Cmdr. Straker.


**Gar Barusch**

**(A UFO Story)**

by Denise Felt 2011

_A SHADO Writer's Guild Challenge Story_

**Chapter 1**

There was something about the way he walked that made her catch her breath. It was an entirely unprofessional response, and to counter it, she looked down at her padd and wrote a few notations. When she glanced back up as he came nearer, she was able to be more clinical in her assessment. There was certainly an amount of unconscious grace in the way that he moved, and the way he held his head spoke of a deep-seated confidence in himself and his ability to handle his surroundings. She wondered what his career might have been before he came here and just what her sessions with him would reveal? Although she had initially resisted taking this assignment, she now found herself almost eager to begin.

He followed the orderly down the neat path between the foliage toward a small gazebo-like structure where the doctor waited for him. It was a clear day with a slight breeze, and the sun felt wonderful on his skin. He was bemused by all of it and tried to figure out why he was having that reaction. He finally supposed that it was because he had assumed that he would be meeting with Dr. Terven in her office. As they neared where she sat on the gazebo bench, he had to resist raising an eyebrow. She didn't look like any psychiatrist he had ever seen; he was sure of it. For a second his mind gave him an image of a small wiry man with large eyes and a smirk. Then it was gone, replaced by the woman who smiled slightly at him and gestured for him to take a seat on the bench.

"Good morning, Gar," she said and inclined her head to the orderly in a signal that he could leave them.

As the orderly headed back toward the building, the man looked at the park around him from his vantage point in the gazebo. Since it was on a raised platform, the structure gave him a better view of the surrounding parkland, which went on for miles. The sheer scope of the landscape gave him pause as he realized that he must be in a more exclusive hospital than he had first assumed. Nobody commandeered that amount of real estate without a lot of clout. It was almost like being at a resort, or at least, similar to what he thought a resort would be. He somehow doubted if he'd spent a lot of time at resorts, or this place wouldn't be such a surprise to him.

Finally he met the doctor's eyes. "It seems to be," he agreed cordially.

Her smile widened at his cautious answer, but she made no comment on it. Instead she said, "Dr. Ramov is pleased with your progress, and indeed, you are looking much better than you did when you arrived. How are you feeling today?"

"Fine."

She didn't even blink at the brevity of his response, but merely nodded and made a note on her padd. "Any pain?"

"No." He frowned at her for a moment, then said, "I still don't understand how I'm able to walk. I was certain when I first woke that my spine was broken."

"It was," she said. "But you have responded well to treatment. Are you experiencing any discomfort? Twinges? Muscle spasms?"

"No."

"But you remain concerned," she deduced from his continued frown.

He met her eyes hesitantly. "It's just that . . . I didn't know people could heal from such an injury."

"I see." She lightly touched his hand for a moment. "Gar, you do realize that you aren't at home?" she asked quietly.

He sighed. "Yes. Dr. Ramov told me. And I would have figured it out for myself before very long. Because although some things here seem very familiar to me, others are quite different from what I know."

"That's good," she said and wrote on her padd.

"Is it?" he asked, raising a brow.

She blinked at his sarcasm, then smiled. "Well, yes, Gar. It is. You see, although you have amnesia, brought on – no doubt – by the severity of the injuries incurred from your accident, it doesn't seem to be total amnesia. That is, you do retain a vague memory of your world and what is familiar to you. This is very good news, because it will make it so much easier for you to build on that and recover the rest of your memories."

He continued to frown at her. "And why would anyone care about my memories, Doctor? I'm a nobody. From a place I can't even remember clearly. I can't even tell you about the accident that brought me here. So, why do my memories matter to you?"

She sighed and shook her head. "I understand your instinctive worry for your world, Gar. And your desire to protect it from possible attack. However, our world is a peaceful one, and we have no designs on yours, if we even knew what planet you were from – which we don't. I realize that you only have my word on it that we mean you no harm, but I would think now that you've been here a while, you would have seen that for yourself."

"Then why do you care?" he asked, still somewhat suspicious.

She met his eyes unflinchingly. "Because I am a doctor. Helping people heal and become whole again is not just my occupation. It's also a compulsion that I have always had inside me and the reason why I chose this profession. I have a need to fix things, Gar. And if I can help fix you and make it possible for you to have a productive life here, then we will both be happier. Does that answer your question?"

After a moment, he dropped his eyes. "Yes." He looked out over the park: watching the trees and other foliage swaying softly in the breeze, admiring how the sun glinted off the windows of the large hospital building nearby, seeing the few people walking around the grounds interact with each other, and noticing the small aircraft and jetpacks that flew by from time to time. He sighed. "I'm sorry, Dr. Terven. I don't mean to be difficult. But somehow I don't think the world I come from is as peaceful as this one."

"That makes you sad."

"I – yes," he conceded. "I guess it does. I want to remember who I am and where I'm from. Of course, I do. But I get this sense of panic occasionally, and the only thing I can figure out from it is that I'm not used to this much kindness from strangers, this much help from people I don't even know. I'm afraid it makes me question everything that's being done for me. I mean, I don't even know who's paying for my stay here."

She gave him a soft smile. "Healthcare is subsidized by the government, Gar. No payment is necessary. Your health and well-being are our primary concern."

He shook his head, and his lips quirked slightly. "This definitely isn't Earth."

The doctor chuckled, unable to resist his dry wit. "Does your planet have a name for itself other than 'Earth?'"

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "Most planets call themselves one version of 'earth' or other. Humans tend to think of themselves as ground creatures, so this is natural. But since the dawn of interstellar flight, our focus has broadened to acknowledge that we needed a name that would set our planet apart from others. A name unique to only us. For star charts and interstellar treaties and such. Does your planet have such a designation?"

He thought for a minute. "I'm not sure," he said finally. "Terra, perhaps?"

"That's a fine name. What does it refer to?"

He grimaced. "It's another word for 'earth' actually. In an ancient language."

"Tell me something, Gar. Does your planet have interstellar flight capabilities? Because it's possible that your race simply hasn't reached the point yet in their history to need a separate designation."

"You may be right. I know about interstellar flight, at least in theory. And I have a vague memory of interstellar craft. But I don't think it's ours, although I couldn't tell you why."

He had very expressive eyes, she thought, and wondered if he knew how easy it was for her to see the emotions he did not mention out loud. "Did Dr. Ramov explain your accident to you, Gar?" she asked gently.

"Yes." His lips compressed slightly. "He said that I crashed here in a spacecraft of some kind and that the other occupants did not survive."

"How did you feel when he told you that?"

He stared off into the distance, but she didn't think he was seeing the landscape at the moment.

"I was glad," he said finally and turned to meet her eyes. "Glad that they didn't live. I suppose that makes me some kind of barbarian."

"Not at all," she replied quietly. "It just implies that you were on that ship against your will and are pleased to be freed from captivity."

"I was a captive?"

He seemed surprised by that notion. "It's possible," she said. "One of many scenarios that fit your particular situation. If it is true, then you were lucky to have crash-landed here. I don't know what fate your captors had planned for you, but I can assure you that you are not a captive now."

"I appreciate that," he said, then sighed. "But even having my freedom doesn't give me what I want."

"Which is what, Gar?"

His blue eyes held a deep sadness as they met hers. "To be home."

**Chapter 2**

Their next session took place in the extensive gardens behind the hospital. A frown sat on his brow as they walked down the paths, and he responded in monosyllables to her attempts at conversation. Most telling of all, though, was the fact that he did not meet her eyes. She let him brood for a while, and was pleased to see the mood lift slightly as he began to notice his surroundings.

Finally he stopped in front of a rosebush and reached out one lean hand to cup a bloom. "I'm glad that your planet has similar plants to my own," he said meditatively. "I wasn't sure what to expect when I found out I wasn't on Earth anymore."

"Class H planets tend to have similar plant and animal families," she said. "Scientists for centuries have debated why that is, but the simplest solution is that we all came from the same homeworld originally and were seeded throughout the galaxy on those planets capable of sustaining our way of life."

His brow raised. "That's an interesting theory. What is a class H planet? One with humans?"

"Yes."

They walked on, and she could tell that thinking about scientific theory had completely lifted his moodiness.

"I would be interested in looking into the subject further, if I may," he said after several minutes.

"Of course. Do you know where the library is?"

"On the main floor, I think one of the nurses said."

"It is," she agreed. "We have thousands of holodiscs on any subject you can imagine. Just inquire at a terminal and scroll through the list. Or if you have a specific question, you can use the search function."

"That sounds easy enough. Thank you."

She smiled slightly at his ingrained politeness. "You're welcome."

He gave her a small answering smile before looking away. When they turned the corner onto another path, he said quietly, "I'm sorry I missed yesterday's session."

She glanced swiftly at him. She hadn't been sure that he would want to discuss it. "It's alright," she assured him.

"Did Dr. Ramov tell you what happened?"

"Yes." She touched his arm for a moment. "These things occur occasionally, Gar. You mustn't blame yourself."

He sighed. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I didn't even realize that I was."

"I know. It's obvious that you were in the grips of an awful nightmare. No one took it personally."

"That's good to know."

They had walked down two more paths before he spoke again. "Aren't you going to ask me about the nightmare?" he asked drily.

She could hear the pain beneath his sarcasm, but managed to keep her sympathy out of her voice when she replied. "When you're ready to discuss it."

He glanced at her, and she met his eyes, braving his piercing scrutiny. Finally he looked away, and she had to assume that he hadn't discerned her compassion, because he said, "There was an explosion, and someone was hurt. I dragged him from the wreckage, but I could tell that he was badly injured." He took a breath before continuing. "In fact, I could tell that he was dying."

"Were you injured as well?"

He paused, considering. "Yes, I suppose so. It wasn't an issue. I was more worried about the other man."

"Was he someone you knew?" she asked quietly.

"I believe so. His face was familiar to me." He sighed and said, "In the nightmare I wanted to stay with him, to be with him so that he didn't die alone."

"What stopped you?" she said, guessing that he hadn't been able to do that.

"I was grabbed and hauled away. I fought, but they were stronger than I was, and I couldn't get out of their hold. I yelled his name; somehow I knew it in the nightmare, even though I can't remember it now. That's when I realized that I was awake and fighting off the orderlies."

"They saw you thrashing in your bed and tried to keep you from falling off. The doctor was on his way to sedate you so that the dream would fade, but you woke up before he got there."

"They sedated me anyway."

"Dr. Ramov felt that you could use the extended rest."

"He was probably right," he conceded. "I know I felt better this morning. I just wish I hadn't hurt them."

"No one was badly injured, Gar. They were treated and released back to work within an hour of the incident, and neither of them were angry with you about it."

He turned to her. "You spoke to them? They aren't upset?"

"No, they weren't upset. The staff here is well-trained. They know these things can happen from time to time, and they knew you meant them no harm. After all, you stopped struggling as soon as you realized you were awake. They did mention that you cried out a name."

He inhaled sharply. "Did they say what name it was?"

"Yes," she said, glad that she had the answer for him. "Alec."

"_Alec_." He stopped on the path and grinned. "Yes! He's Alec! I remember now. How could I have forgotten him? I've worked with him forever. He's practically my right arm!" Suddenly his face lost its excitement, and he looked stricken. "And he died. Dear God. Alec's dead!"

She lightly touched his arm in an effort to redirect his thoughts away from the images his mind was showing him. "Gar, it was a nightmare. There's no guarantee that it was also an actual memory."

He shook his head, his eyes full of horror. "No! You don't understand. I've got to get home. If I'm here and Alec's gone, there's no one left who can keep things together. Earth is doomed! I need to look at your star charts. I've got to find out where I am, and then find a way to get back. It's important!"

She didn't argue in the face of his certainty. "Alright," she said, taking a turn down a path that led toward the hospital. "I'll take you to the library now so that you can look at the charts. But without a proper designation for your planet, you must realize that it will be extremely difficult to find."

"Yes," he sighed. "I am aware of the problem. But I have to try."

The look of determination on his face made her heart go out to him, because surely he was setting himself up for an impossible task. But she couldn't say that to him. Nor even try to dissuade him from it. Because if he and his friend truly were vital to the safety of their planet, then it was necessary to do everything they could to return him to his world before calamity struck.

She showed him how to call up the star charts on the terminal and worked with him until she was sure that he knew how to use the controls to get what he needed onscreen. Then she excused herself, saying, "I have other obligations to take care of that can't be put off. I'll try and return to assist you as soon as I'm free."

He nodded absently as he studied the chart currently on the screen. "Very well." Then he glanced up and met her eyes. "Thank you, Dr. Terven. It means a great deal to me that you're taking this seriously."

"Gar," she said a little hesitantly. "I do believe you. You're obviously not the type of person who habitually overreacts. In fact, you've shown yourself to be remarkably calm in spite of everything you've been through these past weeks. So, if you say that you must return to your world as soon as possible to prevent it from being destroyed, then I'm not going to doubt that you mean it, even when you can't recall all the details of why you know this."

"I appreciate your faith in me more than I can say."

"It's just that I might be able to get us some help in finding your planet, but I'd need more to go on than what I have right now. Do you have any inkling why your presence is so important to your world? You told me that first day that you were a nobody. Has your perception of yourself changed since then?"

He frowned in thought. "It's not that so much. It's more that when I realized it was Alec who had died, it set off a whole series of thoughts in my head. I couldn't even make sense of them all, because they ran by me so quickly, but the main thing I did grasp is that Earth needs at least one of us there to keep it safe. With us both gone, there's just no telling what could happen."

"So, you're saying that you _are_ someone of importance to your world. A prophet or a ruler of some kind?"

"No. It's nothing like that." He paused, and she could clearly see his struggle to get past the mental barrier to the truth that hid there in his mind. "It's much more basic." He finally shook his head in defeat. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I don't have anything more than that to tell you. It's just not there. I wish it was – believe me."

"It will return," she said calmly. "I have the utmost confidence in you, Gar. In the meantime, we will work with what we know. I'll leave you to it, and if you have any questions, I'll try to answer them for you when I get back."

He gave her a wry smile. "You know, Doctor. I don't know how you did it, but somehow you've managed to give me a good opinion of psychiatrists."

She was surprised. "Really? Did you have a poor opinion of them before?"

Once more the face of the man with the smirk flashed across his mind. "Not poor exactly. They just weren't the kind of people I'd ever trust."

"I'm honored, Gar, that you find you can trust me. I'll do my best not to let you down."

**Chapter 3**

"Absolutely not. Request denied."

"Director . . ."

"Listen, Dr. Terven," he interrupted firmly. "You don't even have any real evidence that this crisis exists. Not to mention that for us to devote endless man hours searching for a planet with no designation or reference points would be a fruitless waste of time and energy."

She tried once more to get through. "But knowing that the planet has no name should help us narrow it down some."

"Only by a few hundred out of billions, Doctor. After all, we have no way of being certain that he's even from our sector of the galaxy. And you can't guarantee that his planet isn't in our alliance already. You're taking the word of an amnesiac! What if he simply doesn't remember his planet's name?"

She paced his office, wishing she had firmer ground to stand on than a gut feeling that her patient knew what he was talking about when he said he had to get home. "I realize that it's a long shot, Director," she finally said. "But you're the one who stuck me with this assignment. I would think you'd listen to me when I make a recommendation concerning it."

The Director of Interplanetary Affairs sighed and pinched his nose. "Daja," he said quietly. "Do you know why you were asked to take on this patient?"

She frowned at him. He rarely called her by her given name. She must really be trying his forbearance. "No."

"Because you're the finest in your field. Your record with amnesiacs in particular is exemplary. Miraculous even. And we needed the best for this case. This entire situation is full of political implications that could blow the serenity and security of our civilization sky high."

That startled her. "How?"

He waved it away. "You don't need to know all the details. Suffice it to say that the sooner you can get Gar Barusch to tell us what really occurred to cause that crash, the better it will be for all of Coriandus. This isn't just about getting a man's memory back. More hangs on the information you get from him than you know."

She took a deep breath, thrusting aside the ramifications of what he was saying for the moment. It was necessary to stay on target. "Then why won't you give him the help he needs? Surely it's an important part of his recovery to remember where he's from? I don't understand . . ."

"That's because you're a psychiatrist, Daja. Not an astronomer. You're just going to have to trust me when I tell you that what he's hoping to accomplish could take years. Decades even. We just don't have enough information to even begin to find his planet."

She sighed. Even without a strong background in astronomy, she'd been fairly certain that it was going to be a hopeless task. But she was also sure that Gar was quite aware of the impossibility of his search. And if he wasn't willing to give up, then neither could she.

"Director. Leon," she said, using his own tactic against him by calling him by his first name. "If you can't give me a team, can you at least give me a current listing of all known Class H planets? We stand a much better chance of finding his planet by looking at a few thousand than by trying to sift through billions."

He frowned at her, obviously attempting to fault her logic. "It seems to me that you have allowed yourself to become emotionally attached to this patient, Doctor. Perhaps it would be better all around if you were to try harder to distance yourself from him."

"Just get me the list, Director, and leave my emotions to me." She went to the door, but turned before leaving to say coldly, "For your information, the reason I'm the best in my field is because I _always_ become emotionally attached to my patients." She didn't slam the door on her way out, but she wanted to.

He'd been searching for about five hours by the time the doctor returned. She didn't say anything about where she'd been, but he could tell from how stormy her grey eyes were that her errands had not gone well. But then, neither had his. Perhaps he was being uselessly stubborn in trying to find one particular point of light in the vast regions of space, but he didn't know any other way to go about it. He'd desperately tried to get his mind to open up and remember his past for hours, but everywhere he turned he kept running up against a blank wall. Searching through endless star charts couldn't possibly be more frustrating than that.

Instead of joining him at the terminal in the library, she had him save his search data and bring it with him. She took him to another wing of the large building where there were offices and led him to hers. The nameplate on the door looked very new, and he wondered how long she'd worked at this hospital?

They sat on either side of her desk, which was completely clear of any of the paraphernalia that most desks were covered with, and again he wondered how long she'd had this job? She certainly did not have the demeanor of someone fresh into a position. Rather, she behaved as comfortably as though she'd been at her post for years. He met her eyes over the polished surface of the desk and said, "Have you decided that there's no chance of finding my home, Dr. Terven?"

She shook her head. "On the contrary, Gar. I have here," and she held up the small black rectangle he often saw her writing on, "the listing of all Class H planets that we're aware of. If we highlight these on the star charts you've been studying, then we have a much greater chance of isolating your homeworld."

"That's ingenious," he said, curious now as he realized that her notepad must actually be a miniature computer. "But then, why did we leave the library?"

She looked at him solemnly for a moment. "Because this information is classified and not available to the general public."

"Classified." He held her gaze as he sat back in his chair. "Then this is a military hospital."

"No. Coriandus has no military hospitals."

"I see. Just military personnel," he concluded.

She got up from her seat and went to the nearest window, looking out at the surrounding acreage rather than at him. But he could see the sheen of tears in her eyes. "Yes," she said finally. "I am a military official. But that is secondary to who I really am."

"And who are you really?" he asked tersely.

She drew a breath at his sarcasm, but replied calmly, "I'm a doctor. A psychiatrist. I'm here to help you."

"Among other things."

She shook her head and met his eyes, and he could see her distress. "No! I don't have multiple agendas. That's not how I work. I _won't_ work that way, and the Director knows that. It's why I initially refused this assignment. I can't function – I can't do what I do if I'm constantly forced to be concerned with issues outside my patient's immediate care. My entire focus has to be on helping you find yourself again, or I'll be completely ineffective. I don't know any other way to work, even though I'm aware that my approach is considered a bit unorthodox. But it gets results, which is why I was asked to handle your case in the first place."

"And they're asking you to consider other things," he surmised.

She nodded. "But it's more than that really. Even here on Coriandus there is a deeply ingrained distrust of the military. You'd think after centuries of peace, such feelings would go away, but they're surprisingly resilient. Which is why I didn't tell you right away that I was a military official. I wasn't trying to deceive you, Gar. I just didn't want to make it any harder for you to trust me than it already was for you. It's necessary for you to be able to depend on me, or you'll never be able to open up to me. And as long as you remain closed off, your memories will too." She walked back to her chair and sat down. "And now that you know that I'm military, you'll never trust me. So where does that leave us?"

He studied her for several minutes in silence. Then he said, "I think you've proven that you're not the general run of the military, Doctor. For one thing, I would never have pegged you as military, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. You just don't come across as anything other than what you say you are: a caring medical professional. And for another, you're very unlike any psychiatrist I've known in the past, and I find it remarkably easy to trust you."

Her grey eyes searched his face. "Thank you, Gar."

"There's one more thing you should know, Doctor," he said. "I'm fairly sure that I'm in the military myself. Or was, on my planet."

"Of course!" she said, sitting forward eagerly as the pieces fell into place. "That's why you're important to your world. You're a great military leader. A general perhaps? Or an admiral? Someone high up in your global defense network?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't think so. It feels more like I'm a foot soldier. Someone on the front lines."

"But a key point on those front lines, then. You'd have to be for the entire fate of your world to rest on you. And your friend Alec. He must have been part of your squad. You called him your right arm."

"That's right," he agreed. "He'd have been my second-in-command. The one to take my place if anything happened to me."

"Except that he's gone too."

"Yes." He sat thinking about it for a time, then nodded. "It fits. And more than that, it feels right. Thank you for helping me clarify that, Doctor."

She smiled. "You're welcome, Gar." Then she took his data slip and slid it into a notch just below the surface of her desk. Suddenly one of the star charts he'd been studying for hours onscreen popped up between them – in three dimensions. As his eyes widened in appreciation, he realized that her desktop was actually another type of computer terminal. Which was probably why she kept it clear.

"Incredible."

She grinned at him. "Oh, that's nothing." She touched a few places on her padd and several of the points of light turned red. "Now we have the positions of all solar systems containing Class H planets in Sector 1. Do any of them seem familiar to you?"

He looked them over carefully. But none of them rang any bells. "I'm pretty sure my solar system has nine planets. Does that help?"

She made an adjustment on her padd and over half of the red lights turned back to white. "That narrows it down for us. I've eliminated any systems with less than eight planets, just to give us a margin of error."

"Great. I'm not able to discern anything from this overview, though. Is there a way to look at each solar system individually?"

"Certainly." She touched a few places just below the desktop, then said, "Pick one of the red points; one that looks like a good candidate to you."

He pointed to one near the edge of the desk. "This one."

"You can touch it, Gar," she told him. "It will enlarge to give you the schematic of the solar system when you do."

"Really?" he asked, intrigued by this glimpse into their technology. Wouldn't it be great to have one of these for his office back home? For a moment he could almost see it – his office– and picture it in his mind. Then it was gone. But he took a breath, not allowing himself to get frustrated. Because he knew it would return. After frantically trying all day to get the barrier in his mind to recede, he found that he was suddenly remembering things quite easily. And he knew who he had to thank for it. He glanced at her in the dimmed lighting of the room, her face reflecting the glow of the many stars on the three dimensional field between them. It was as she had said. Working together didn't just make the memories trickle back; under her care they seemed to flood back faster than he could keep up with them. He wondered if she might be consciously directing her energies toward opening his mind, then suddenly realized that she was waiting for him to touch the star on the field.

He reached out and touched the red star. Instantly the star field shifted, enlarging to show a detailed diagram of the solar system in question. The fourth planet looked fertile and green, and he said, "What do you know about this world?"

"That's Mayandil," she told him. "They are a wonderful civilization just on the point of industrialization. However, their population is extremely open to outsiders and we hope to be able to welcome them soon into the Alliance in spite of their lack of technology."

He frowned at her. "I'm not sure what you mean. You haven't conquered them?"

"That's not how the Alliance operates, Gar. We hold to a strict non-interference directive. There are many Class H planets that are not members of the Alliance. To force their cooperation would be counter-productive. We're not an aggressive species. We prefer to live in peace."

"Sometimes peace comes with a price."

She reached over the desk and touched his hand for a moment. "I know. Fortunately, we've been in a position in our sector of being one of the more advanced planets. That gives us a military advantage that few try to fight. It also gives us the obligation to share our expertise with those who request our assistance. We can't offer aid with one hand and domination with the other."

He sighed. "I envy you your wisdom."

She raised her brows at his tone. "Gar, every planet eventually reaches a point where it must decide how it will be viewed by the rest of the universe. Will it be aggressive and try to take over everything in its path? Or will it seek to be known as a place where those in search of truth and enlightenment can come and find refuge? There are endless variations of both of those views, as well. But the main thing is that the decision comes to all of us. Your planet will reach that point some day too. And if you are anything to go by, then it's clear what they will ultimately decide."

"That's very gracious of you, Dr. Terven. But the truth is that as long as we're in the midst of a war ourselves, we won't be able to make any choice on the matter. We'll be forced down a path we don't want."

"That's not definite. Truly it isn't. I know of many planets who have been faced with the threat of invasion, yet still responded positively."

"And are they still free planets?" he asked drily.

She grinned. "Yes. Most of them."

"_Most_ of them."

She shrugged. "The odds are in your favor, at least."

He sighed. "Well, in any case, you don't advise me to give up hope."

"I would never do so, Gar."

He smiled wryly. "No. I don't suppose you would, Doctor." He flicked a hand toward the solar system on display. "Mayandil isn't my world. We're more technologically advanced than that. And Earth isn't the fourth planet in our system. It's the third."

She nodded and made an adjustment on her padd. The original star chart returned, but had a few less red lights than before. "Most solar systems that support human societies have them on the third or fourth planet. I don't know all the scientific reasoning behind it, except that it has to do with its distance from the sun and the amount of light that reaches through the natural cloud barrier."

"That makes sense," he agreed. "What about this star over here?"

Much later she noticed that he was looking pale. When she checked her digital display, she was shocked to realize how late it was. She turned up the lights and shut down the desktop.

He blinked at her for a moment in the brighter light, then said, "Are we done then?"

She smiled. "For today. It's very late, and they'll be waiting to give you your dinner. Get a good night's rest, and we can get back to it in the morning. We've eliminated a lot of Sector 1 already."

He gave her a look as he got up from the chair. "Don't patronize me, Doctor. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, and we both know it."

"A what?" she asked, diverted by his phrase.

"It's . . ." He waved a hand. "Nothing. It just means that it isn't going to be easy to find."

She tilted her head slightly. "Ready to give up?"

"No."

"Then I'll see you in the morning."

**Chapter 4**

"Let's take a break and get outside for a bit, shall we?"

He blinked as the lights came back up in her office. He almost told her to go ahead without him; that he would just keep pressing on. But after one look at her expression he realized that her invitation wasn't actually one after all, so he sighed and stood up, stretching after being in one spot for hours. "Very well, Doctor. If you insist."

She grinned at his dry tone. "Believe me, Gar. I am fully aware what manner of man I am dealing with in you. Some things even amnesia has no power to disguise."

"What does that mean?" he asked in surprise.

Dr. Terven chuckled. "It means that I can tell that you're extremely focused and driven, and probably wouldn't come up for air for the next month if someone didn't demand it."

His lips twitched, but he didn't argue with her analysis.

It was early evening when they left the building, following one of the lit pathways toward a slightly wooded area. He looked about him with interest, not having been outdoors before at this time of day. The stones under their feet seemed to be luminescent rather than lit from beneath as he had first assumed. When he inquired about it, she told him that they were brought in from Tambreanor, where they could be found in great abundance. He remembered the planet from their search. It was a few systems away from Coriandus and possessed an agrarian society even though they had the technology to be much more advanced. He supposed it took all kinds. It certainly wasn't a lifestyle he would embrace.

There was a cool breeze blowing that moved through the trees as they wandered the paths, creating a soft shurring sound among the leaves that he found very relaxing. After they'd gone a ways, he looked over at her and found her eyes on him. There was a fugitive twinkle in them, and he grinned in spite of himself. "Yes," he admitted, acknowledging that she had been right about the walk. "I suppose I did need to stop gazing at star charts for a while."

She laughed. "I wasn't going to say anything, I assure you."

"I appreciate your reticence. But it wouldn't be the first time someone told me 'I told you so.'"

"I understand where you're coming from, Gar, so I wouldn't say that to you. I tend to be a bit driven myself upon occasion."

"I've been wondering about that," he said. "I'm grateful for your help – in fact, more than I can put into words. But I do realize that you must have other demands on your time. I don't want to monopolize all of it."

"You're not," she told him. "I have no other patients at the moment. You are my sole responsibility."

"Is that normal for you?"

"Sometimes," she admitted. "It depends on the circumstances. Some situations require more of my time than others."

He grimaced. "I see. Sorry."

She shook her head. "Don't be. I've found this case to be one of the most intriguing I've ever worked on. I just wish it were possible for us to take the time to explore your returning memories more, instead of having to focus our efforts on finding your world. We don't want you to go back home only partially recovered, you know. How would that look in my report?"

He gave her a glimpse of his charming smile. "I'll try to be whole again before I leave, Doctor. I certainly wouldn't want to blemish your perfect record."

"Thank you, Gar. Your consideration is appreciated."

After a while, he said, "I am remembering more. It's little things really. Nothing of major importance. Faces, mostly, of friends and colleagues. Maybe a few that might be family. It's hard to say. I'm much more ambivalent about those, so I can't be sure."

"We're always more ambivalent about family, Gar. It's a fact of life."

"I suppose."

"Children?" she asked, trying to imagine him with a family.

"Yes. One. A son." He paused, bringing the youthful face back into his mind for a moment. "It bothers me that I can't recall his name. He's my son. How can I forget his name?"

"Gar," she said, stepping closer in an instinctive desire to give comfort. "Did Dr. Ramov discuss your injuries with you fully?"

He looked swiftly at her. "What do you mean?"

She sighed. "He didn't tell you the extent of your injuries, did he?"

He frowned as he tried to recall what the physician had said to him. "He rattled off a number of very serious-sounding terms, but I could tell that I was fine, so I didn't pay a lot of attention. Doctors have a tendency to exaggerate everything and make things sound much worse than they are."

She shook her head. "You have certainly had your share of unreliable doctors, it seems. But you really should have listened to Dr. Ramov a little better. He's a good doctor and was only trying to explain how far you've come since you were first brought here."

"Was it bad?" he asked.

"Yes."

He met her eyes and realized something. "You were here, weren't you? From the beginning?"

She nodded, unable to speak past the sudden lump in her throat. She knew she would always remember how he had looked when she first saw him – his body broken, twisted, and burnt almost beyond recognition.

"Why was that, Doctor?"

"I don't understand your question, Gar."

His blue eyes searched her face carefully. "Why would they need a psychiatrist before I was even conscious?"

She sighed and looked away. "Because you sustained a great deal of brain damage," she said quietly. "Most we could heal. Some we could not. But we knew from the start that you would require the services of a good psychiatrist if you were ever going to be able to function normally again."

He said nothing for a time; just continued to watch her averted face. Then he looked at the woods surrounding them, felt the cooling breeze, and listened to the sounds of the twilight gathering around them. "How bad is it?" he asked finally. "I don't feel impaired in any way."

"You're not," she assured him firmly. "You've done miraculously well, recovering ninety-seven percent of your mobility already, and Dr. Ramov has hopes of getting that up to one hundred percent before your physical therapy sessions are through."

"And my brain?"

"You have to understand, Gar, that we weren't even sure at first if you'd ever regain your motor skills. Or understand speech or any number of other processes. The fact that you're walking around without any signs of impairment is truly a miracle, and one that we are all very grateful for on your behalf."

"And the bad news?" he persisted, trying not to cringe at the thought that he could have ended up little more than a vegetable.

She sighed again. "There may always be some gaps in your memory; areas of your mind that are no longer accessible. But over time you will forge new pathways, I promise you. The mind can heal itself. It just needs time."

"So what you're saying is that I may never remember my son's name?"

She ran a hand through her hair in a way that clearly showed her worry for him. "I can't tell you what you will or will not remember, Gar. It's much better if you don't concern yourself too much with it. If you accept limitations, then you won't try as hard to heal."

"And you want me to heal."

"Don't you?" she asked, her grey eyes dark against the shadows around them.

"Yes." He shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants and headed back the way they'd come. She fell into step beside him, but did not speak. He knew that she would have been much happier if she hadn't needed to tell him how badly he'd been injured. He even understood her reasons why. But he had to know. He was stuck here on an alien planet without even the clothes he'd been wearing when he arrived. He felt more helpless than he'd ever felt in his life; at the mercy of a race of people he didn't even know and had never heard of before. Home seemed to be a place that was very far away at the moment. They'd covered most of Sector 1 in their search and were nearly ready to move on to Sector 2, but he was quite aware that their star charts covered nearly fifty sectors. He knew that the odds against him ever getting back to Earth were astronomical, just as he knew that every day he spent looking through star charts made it possible for Earth to be destroyed before he ever reached it. But what else could he do?

They came out of the trees, and he stopped, stunned by the wash of color across the western sky. Vivid color splashed over cloud and sky, and he realized with a shock that it had been a very long time since he had witnessed a sunset.

He realized something else too. As the miracle of light and refraction played out before him, he understood that he'd been given a second chance at life here on this distant planet. If he'd crashed that badly on Earth, he'd be dead now. Or worse – a complete vegetable, kept alive by machines and never again fully aware of his surroundings. He looked at Dr. Terven as she stood next to him smiling slightly at the sunset. How could he possibly tell her how much it meant to him that he'd ended up on this planet instead of another one? How grateful he was for everything that had been done for him since he'd arrived, by people who had no other motive to help him than their own kindness!

Yes, there was the military factor. And from Dr. Terven's own words, he was able to deduce that they had their own agenda involved somehow in his recovery. But it didn't seem to be very important. He certainly couldn't see any way he would be considered a military asset to them. Maybe he'd wake up someday and find that this paradise he'd landed in had a serpent after all. But he wasn't going to worry about it tonight.

He drank in the beauty of the wash of color for some time before continuing back to the hospital. But once they entered the building, he said, "I don't feel like working on star charts tonight, Doctor, if that's alright with you."

"That's fine, Gar," she said quietly. "Do you want some time alone?"

"Not really," he told her, realizing as he said it that it was true.

"In that case, perhaps you'd like to visit the lounge with me. There's a game I've been wanting to see if you might like to play. I think it would challenge your puzzle-solving skills. It's called Xardoni and is one of my favorites."

He raised a brow. "Really? A challenge, you say? Well, then. Lead on."

"Oh, you're sly!" she complained as he swept her pieces off the board. "I didn't even see that coming!"

He chuckled as he sat back in his comfortable chair. "I hope this hasn't given you a distaste for your favorite game, Doctor."

"Not in the least," she said, eying him fiercely. "My blood is up, and I'm determined to get the best of you. Shall we play again?"

"Alright." As he set his pieces onto their places on the board, he said, "We have a similar game on Earth called chess, although the rules are simpler and the pieces aren't as diverse as these are."

"I suppose you are a master at that game," she accused playfully.

His grin flashed momentarily. Then he looked innocently at her. "I don't know why you would think that, Doctor."

She laughed, enchanted with this glimpse of him in a more relaxed setting. "You know, Gar," she said as she moved her twiffo into play. "When I'm off-duty, I don't stand on formality. You can call me Daja."

He glanced swiftly at her, then back down at the board. "That's a lovely name," he said as he contemplated his move. "Does it have a special meaning?"

She grimaced. "It means one who fixes things."

"Your mother must have been prophetic."

She grinned. "My mother – ! She is quite unique."

He moved his barvet into play. "How so?"

She sipped her drink. "She's from Serendi and used to tell me the most wonderful bedtime stories from her homeworld when I was a little girl."

He recalled that Serendi was an Alliance planet in a nearby star system. "Such as?" he asked her, more out of a desire to hear her talk about her childhood than any real curiosity about Serendian folklore.

She grinned impishly at him. "Well, you may have wondered how you got your name."

He looked at her in surprise, lifting a brow at her when he saw her grin. "Oh? Is it from one of your mother's tales then?"

"It is."

"I'm almost afraid to ask what the story is about."

She shook her head at him. "I wouldn't give you the name of someone awful! You should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking it!"

His grin flashed again. "Then tell me," he said.

"Gar Barusch was the man who was and wasn't there. It's a long and convoluted story, but in essence, he had this talent that kept getting him into situations where he was blamed for things he didn't do. I always felt rather sorry for him."

"How does the story end?"

She chuckled. "He ends up becoming the new king, of course."

"And you thought that name suited me?" he asked incredulously.

Her eyes twinkled as she moved her quarmel to block his cartusk. "Naturally."

He gave her a look. Then he turned his attention to the board.

She won, but he'd put up a strong fight. As they put the pieces back into their niches in the game box, she said, "You don't mind, do you?"

"Hmmm?" he asked absently, fingering one of the game pieces. As he put them away, he wished he could take this game home with him when he went. It was definitely more interesting and challenging than chess.

"That I named you for a man in a folktale."

"Oh." He smiled wryly at her concerned look. "Not at all. We have a vaguely similar story on Earth about the man who gets blamed whenever children break something or drag dirt through the house. He's called 'Mr. Nobody.' I never got to blame anything on him at my house,

because I was an only child and no one would have believed me. But Alec often told tales of how his mother would be ready to tear out hair, because he and his siblings would all deny having done something and blame it on Mr. Nobody."

Instead of smiling at his story, she asked quietly, "And do you feel like a nobody here, Gar?"

He met her eyes. "Occasionally."

"Don't," she said firmly as she got to her feet. "You're much more important than you know."

"Oh?" he said, sensing more behind her tone.

She grimaced. "Actually, you're more important than I know too. At least, the Director seems to think so."

**Chapter 5**

He woke up screaming, his arms flailing as he fought to get free of the sheets tangling him. He ended up trembling on the floor, tears running down his face as he gasped for breath. The orderlies ran forward to assist him to his feet, but he held them off with a raised hand and a choked, "I'm fine!"

They looked at each other for a moment, unsure what to do, then one of them pulled out his comm and contacted Dr. Ramov.

By the time the physician entered his room, he was seated on the couch in the sitting area, staring at the abstract painting on the opposite wall. Dr. Ramov came over to the couch and sat, noticing the paleness of his features and the fine trembling of his hands.

"How are you feeling, Gar? Are you in pain?"

His patient closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked at the doctor. "I'm fine," he said. "It wasn't necessary for them to wake you and bring you here."

"I don't mind," said Dr. Ramov. "I'm available whenever you need me. Did you have another nightmare? Shall I summon Dr. Terven for you?"

"No! Don't wake her. It's the middle of the night. I'll talk to her in the morning."

The doctor sighed. "Is there anything I can do for you? Would you like a sedative so that you can sleep?"

A shudder passed through his frame before he could control it. "No, Doctor," he said as calmly as he could. "I don't want to go back to sleep just now. I'll be fine. Really."

Dr. Ramov eventually left, but he continued to worry about his patient for some time. Finally, he contacted the duty nurse and inquired if Gar had gone back to sleep. When she told him that he was still up, the doctor thanked her and closed his comm.

Then he called Dr. Terven.

He looked up when she came into his room. And sighed. "I told him not to wake you," he said.

She dismissed the orderlies and came over to the couch. As she sat down, she raised her brows. "Then I'm glad that he doesn't answer to you."

He plucked at the hem of his pajama top. "It wasn't urgent. I was willing to wait until morning to talk to you about it. I don't know why he felt it necessary to bother you. I'm fine."

"Are you, Gar?" she asked softly.

The compassion in her voice overwhelmed him, and fresh tears fell down his cheeks. When he could speak, he said hoarsely, "Finding Earth isn't really important anymore. I can't go back, even if we do find it."

"Why not?"

He swallowed. "Because it won't be the Earth I know!" He shook his head. "They'll have won. And there will be nothing left to save."

"You can't know that."

"I _do_ know it!" he said, clenching his fists. "We can't win the war. We knew it from the beginning. The most we could ever expect to do is to hold them off. They're technologically advanced, with tricks up their sleeve we can't even begin to fight. Besides the fact that they're much more vicious than we are. We can't win!"

Her lips wanted to tremble, but she ruthlessly firmed them. "Tell me then. How long did you hold them off?"

He sighed and wearily rubbed his eyes. "The base I was in charge of fought them for nearly fifteen years. Why?"

"Because I believe that they will continue to fight them off for another fifteen."

He gave a harsh laugh. "God! And Alec always called me the optimist!" His blue eyes were tortured when they met hers. "You can't know that," he said, using her own words against her.

"This is what I know, Gar. I know that some races tend to be passive, with little or no drive to grow and evolve into anything other than what they are. Others possess a moderate amount of ambition and flourish quite well in most settings. But there are a few races that go far beyond that. They not only flourish, they expand – becoming more than they would ever have dreamed. Nothing stops them. Not internal skirmishes. Not natural calamities. Not invaders from space. And this is what I know: that whatever world you are from is that kind of world. Because you are the most determined man I have ever known. And you can't be unique among your people. So if there is one like you on your planet, then there are many."

"I'm not unique," he said with a frown.

She smiled. "Then your world will survive this war. Guaranteed."

His eyes searched hers for a long time. Then he sat back with a deep sigh. "You're right. I'm sorry. It all just hit me at once, and I'm afraid it felt as if I'd failed altogether."

"What happened, Gar? What did you remember?"

She'd reached out a hand to him, and he took it in his, holding it tightly as he said, "I saw their faces."

Again her lips trembled, but she quickly controlled it. "Tell me."

"You have to understand. In all the years we've fought them, I've never had a face-to-face encounter. At least, not one where they were on the loose and armed. And it's amazing how your perspective changes when they're more than just a blip on the screen."

"I am certain."

"We had no warning. One minute we were in the car returning from the airport where I'd picked up Alec; the next, I was coughing up blood and scrambling to find him through the smoke of the wreckage."

"You were injured."

"Yes. I don't know how badly. I didn't take inventory. I do know that I couldn't walk, so I suppose at least one of my legs was broken. Anyway, I managed to pull him from the car and drag him to a safe distance. But it was bad. I could tell just looking at him that he wasn't going to make it until help arrived." He paused. "And he knew it too. I don't know what I said to him. Useless words, all of it, because we both knew he was done. I couldn't bear it. How was I supposed to carry on without him? He'd been with me for more than half my life! He wasn't just my right arm – he was both of them!" He lifted his hands before his face and stared at them. Then he rubbed his eyes again and said, "Stupid, I know, to be thinking of myself when he was dying."

"It's not stupid at all," she said. "His cares were almost over. Yours weren't."

"Maybe. Anyway, they dragged me away from him. I have to admit that I wasn't even thinking of them at the time. I only knew that I couldn't leave him there to die alone. So I wasn't ready when they came, although I fought when they took me. Not that it did me any good. I yelled his name. Told him how sorry I was. Held his gaze until he was out of sight."

She got up after a moment and brought him a glass of water. He drank it gratefully, then set the empty glass aside.

"Thank you," he said.

"What did they do to you?" she asked.

"They dragged me back to their ship and threw me on the floor like so much garbage." He sat back and closed his eyes. "I didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore. Alec was dead, and those bastards hadn't even let me stay with him till the end! My one consolation was that I knew I'd be joining him soon. And I was glad. _Glad!_"

His eyes were fierce when they met hers, but she didn't flinch away. Instead she laid her hand over his clenched one and said, "But you didn't die."

He shook his head wearily. "I might have. But they wouldn't let me be. One of them kept kicking me, cursing at me in some coarse language I didn't understand. But his sentiments were clear enough."

Her hand tightened on his. "He kicked you?"

He nodded. "Kicked, hit, stabbed. I didn't care. It would all be over soon. I couldn't save Earth. I couldn't save Alec. I couldn't even save myself. But soon it wouldn't matter anymore."

Her grey eyes were full of tears when she said, "What changed your mind?"

His fist unclenched and clasped her hand. "He started to piss me off! And the other alien began yelling at him. I guess they were supposed to bring me back to their world alive." He grimaced. "That wasn't a fate I was willing to embrace. And I realized that the other alien was at the controls, trying to keep them focused on something. So I thought if I could just get to them – distract him enough to get to them – maybe I could scuttle the ship. You know, make it crash."

"And you did."

"Yeah." The ghost of his charming grin flashed for a second. "I was barely conscious by that time, but I remember pulling that lever. I'd thought it was the piloting controls, but when I had my hand on it, I knew it was something else. There was so much power going through that device that I could feel it. I don't know what it did. I blacked out at that point." He met her eyes. "But somehow that device brought me clear across the galaxy. And your people took it from there."

"I'm not a spacecraft engineer, Gar, so I don't know how pulling that lever could bring you here. Unless it somehow affected the space-time continuum."

"Yes, of course!" He turned to her, his eyes suddenly eager. "They had to have used their time freeze device again. They did it once before and almost succeeded in destroying our base. But the mere fact that they were able to breech our defenses without setting off any alerts and attack my car without fear of being shot down means that they must have used that technique again. And if that lever controlled the device, then when I messed with it, it might have easily disrupted space-time as we know it."

She was nodding. "And since space and time are interconnected, when the device exploded, it took the craft with it across space. Maybe even across time."

He frowned at the thought. "That could be a problem. I really don't want to get back to Earth only to find myself in the middle of the Crusades."

"It'll work out, Gar. I know it will."

His lips quirked. "That famous optimism again, Daja?"

She grinned. "No. It's simply this: you were meant to come here. Consider a moment. What were the odds that you would be catapulted clear across the galaxy and end up on the one planet that could nurse you back to health?"

"I wondered about that myself, actually."

"And what did you conclude?"

He shrugged. "I don't have an explanation for it."

"You were meant to live, Gar. That's my conclusion. And you were meant to heal enough to go back to your world and stop those berserkers from taking over!"

He grinned at her ferocious faith in him. Then he caught what she'd said and asked, "Berserkers? Why do you call them that? Have you run across them before?"

She avoided his eyes, got up from the couch, and went to the window, looking out into the dark. "One of them survived," she said finally.

"You said – !"

She whirled around. "I know what I said! I couldn't discuss it with you, Gar. It was classified. And besides, what good would it have done you to know one of your captors lived? You didn't need to know that. You needed to feel safe. You needed to heal."

He stood up and came over to where she stood. "What did he do, Daja? Did they think you could work with him? Did he hurt you?"

She shook her head, her throat choked with tears. "It wasn't me. I wasn't in the room when he woke. I was next door in the observation room."

He laid a hand on her dark hair soothingly. "I'm sorry."

"Why do you apologize? You weren't the one who maimed everyone in the room and killed poor Dr. Winslot."

He sighed. "No. But I brought him here."

She shook her head again, then rested it on his shoulder with a sigh. "You can't take on the blame for that."

"I'm sorry you had to see it," he said as his arm went around her, unable to keep from picturing it himself.

"I've never considered myself sheltered, Gar," she said after a time. "I've worked with many minds over the years: some wonderful, some terrible, some in-between. But I'd never seen anything to equal that degree of viciousness. He wasn't even human, even though he was. He was!"

When she trembled, he drew her closer and kissed the top of her head. "You can't look at them like that. They've gone so far outside the realm of what constitutes humanity in their thirst to survive that they won't even fit into that category any longer. They may have our form, Daja. But they're not human."

"I used to sit and read the report of your injuries," she said quietly. "Over and over. Trying to figure out which injuries you sustained in the crash and which ones they inflicted on you."

"Daja!"

She turned in his arms and met his eyes. "I couldn't distance myself – not even the minimum amount. I tried. As much as I know that it's necessary to lose a measure of my objectivity with a patient if I ever hope to help them, I couldn't with you. Because it was never there to start with! I couldn't even begin treating you once you were conscious. I had to wait until you were well! I kept seeing that creature tearing apart those who were there to help him, and the image of how you looked when they first brought you in kept going through my mind. And I couldn't stop wondering what they'd done to you? How many of your wounds were from the crash and how many were from the berserkers? I couldn't get past it. I'm sorry."

She was sobbing by this point, and he held her close, running his hand through her hair as he murmured reassurances to her. When she quieted, he dried the tears on her cheeks with his hands and kissed her.

When he drew back, he kept a hand on her face, gently rubbing her lips with his thumb as he said, "I suppose we've just broken several doctor-patient laws, but I'm not sorry. Are you going to press charges?"

Beneath his thumb her smile bloomed. "I love it when you're sarcastic, Gar."

He grinned back at her, but said, "My name isn't Gar."

"What is it then?"

"Ed. Ed Straker."

"Ed is a very common name throughout the galaxy. And there are endless variations of it. It's a diminutive, isn't it? What is your full given name?"

His lips quirked. The littlest things intrigued her. "Edward."

Her smile widened. "Then your mother was prophetic too."

"Oh?" he asked, startled.

"Edward means 'powerful guardian.'"

He grimaced. "I wasn't that powerful after all, was I?"

"Oh, you didn't do so badly," she said. "You managed to survive certain death and have hopes of returning home again to save the day. Sounds powerful enough to me."

"You're easily impressed."

She chuckled as she slid out of his arms. "I'm also dead on my feet. I'm going home to get some sleep. Will you be alright?"

"Yes." He yawned. "Actually, I may try to get more sleep myself. Shall I come to your office after breakfast?"

"No. Give yourself time to settle first. Sleep in. Take a walk. Then meet me after lunch, and we'll get going on Sector 2."

**Chapter 6**

He looked much better when he came to her office later in the day. She grinned at him and said, "I forgot to ask you, Edward. What's your son's name?"

He gave her an answering smile. "John."

"Another common name."

"I suppose," he admitted. "But I do know what his name means. It means 'beloved.'"

She lowered the lights and brought up Sector 2 on her desktop. "What's he like?"

"He's dead."

She gasped and looked closely at him, but he seemed to be handling the memory. "I'm so sorry."

He met her eyes. "Most of the people that I have loved in my life are gone now."

She touched his hand in sympathy, knowing that he was thinking of his friend Alec. "It's one of the hardest parts of life to handle. I know."

He chose a red star and touched it, bringing the solar system into focus. "I'm glad though that John isn't one of the things I'm not going to be able to remember. That really bothered me. I didn't get to see him much, so every memory I have of him is precious."

"You worked long hours that kept you away from him?"

"It wasn't that, although I did work long hours. It's that his mother and I were divorced, and I only got to see him once a month."

"That doesn't seem very fair to you."

He grimaced. "Visitation laws aren't very kind to the non-custodial parent. I was lucky I got to see him at all."

"Can you talk about him? Was he as brilliant as his father?"

"How about a trade?" he suggested. "You tell me about this solar system, and I'll tell you about John."

By the time the lights came back up and the desktop was turned off, they were both feeling slightly discouraged. Sector 2 had gone quickly, since there were not many solar systems there with eight or more planets, and they were now well into Sector 3. But they still hadn't found a possible candidate for his homeworld.

He ran a hand through his hair as he sat back. "You'd think once we narrowed it down further, the search would go faster."

"I'm afraid it's very common for a large solar system to have at least one gas giant. Even a planet with a counter orbit isn't unusual."

He grimaced. "And here I thought I remembered something that we could actually use to help find Earth."

"We won't stop, Edward. We will find your home for you."

He reached across the desk and took her hand in his. "I know, Daja. And I can't tell you how grateful I am for your encouraging support. Without you, I'd still be looking at star charts onscreen in the library. As it is, I see them every time I close my eyes." He shook his head ruefully. "I even see them in my dreams. Fields of stars everywhere I look. That's the worst of it, though, because in the dreams I can almost glimpse a pattern among them – then when I look again, they shift into something else."

"Oh, Edward!" she said with a chuckle. "I'm so sorry. That has to be so annoying."

"It is," he agreed. "Almost like those damn Rorschach tests in the psych evaluations we had to have every quarter!"

"What?"

He shook his head. "Oh. Sorry. It's nothing."

But she stood up, looking oddly at him.

"Daja?"

"Edward," she said a trifle breathlessly. "I know what a Rorschach test is."

He slowly stood and stared back at her. "How?"

She swallowed and picked up her padd from the desk, writing something on its surface. "You told me once that your world had another name. Terra."

"Yes."

"It meant earth in an ancient language, you said." She looked up at him for a moment. "Edward, what was the language?"

He laid his hands on the edge of the desk. "Latin."

She turned the padd around and showed it to him. On its backlit surface he read a dictionary entry: _Terra: (archaic, from the ancient Latin) soil, earth. Example: terra firma._

He looked up at her in shock. "But it can't be! How can this be Earth?"

"Time!" She set the padd sharply down on the desk. "Because you somehow came across time instead of space, Edward! It's the only explanation that makes sense."

He glanced toward the dark window. "Wait! I need to see the night sky, Daja. I know what the constellations look like from Earth. If they're the same . . ."

She grabbed her jacket. "Let's go!"

He was impressed with her driving abilities. Especially since they had to drive a ways before they found a spot where there were no lights to interfere with their view. Although he wasn't sure anyone would call what she did driving in a technical sense, since the vehicle spent more than half its time airborne. He held onto his seat and wondered if he'd get the chance to get behind the wheel himself sometime?

She landed the car/jet/heli near the brow of a hill, and they got out. The night sky glowed with billions of stars against its black backdrop of space. He pointed directly overhead. "There's Gemini, the twins. And – oh, my God! It's Orion! The Big Dipper. The North Star." He turned to her, his face filled with wonder. "Daja! I can't believe it! It's Earth! All this time I've been on Earth!"

She grinned, her eyes full of joyous tears. "And we've been wasting our time looking through star charts. We should have just gone outside after dark."

He grinned back at her as he put his arm around her. "In fact, we couldn't see the trees for the forest!" He stared at the stars above them, letting the reality settle into his mind. "And here I was sure I was on the other end of the galaxy. How ridiculous I feel to realize that I didn't go anywhere after all!"

She chuckled, and he said, "What year is this?"

"Oh, um." She took out her padd and keyed in some numbers. "I'll have to extrapolate to find out for you. We use Galactic Standard for measuring time, and I somehow doubt that you know anything about that. Let's see. It says: 2571 in Old Earth Standard."

"2571?" he asked in astonishment. "That's almost six hundred years after I left!"

"What year was it when you left, Edward?" she said curiously.

"1985."

She sighed. "You do realize that we'll probably be forced to have an interview with Temporal Security now."

His brows raised. "Who are they?"

"They deal with temporal violations, paradoxes, causality loops, and other time difficulties."

"That sounds interesting."

She grimaced. "It might actually be, if they weren't so disapproving all the time. Wait till you meet them. A more uptight division of the government you will never know."

He flashed her his charming smile. "I don't care. I'd rather deal with the future than the past any day."

She laid a hand on his chest. "Welcome home, Edward."

He swept her up into a delirious kiss. When he set her back on her feet, she was a little breathless. But she said in a somewhat calm voice, "I guess you won't need me to be your doctor anymore. Not only have you regained the majority of your memory, but you found your way home."

His eyes stared into hers as he lifted her hand to his lips. "I'm glad. I don't want you to be my doctor any longer."

"Really?" she asked playfully, her pulse pounding.

"Really," he said with a smile as he drew her back into his arms. When he eventually released her, he said huskily, "I have other plans for you."

"Oh, Edward!"

They were walking hand-in-hand across the parking lot toward the hospital main entrance when a man came toward them.

"Dr. Terven?" he asked when he got close enough.

"Yes?" she replied.

He turned to her companion. "Edward Straker?"

Straker was startled to hear himself called by his name. "Yes," he said cautiously.

The man turned back to Daja. "Will you come with me, ma'am? The Director wishes to speak to both of you."

She frowned. "Now?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And who might you be?" she asked.

"Col. Bishop, ma'am."

"Your authorization code?"

He rattled it off to her.

"Very well, Colonel," she said, recognizing it. "We'll come."

"Thank you, ma'am. Right this way, please."

He led the way to where a military cavalcade awaited and ushered them into the second vehicle. As she sat back against the cushions, she met Edward's eyes and said with a sigh, "Well, at least it isn't Temporal Security."

**Epilogue**

Col. Bishop led them into the Director of Interplanetary Affairs' office a few hours later. Daja was curious about this meeting, so late in the evening and so soon after she'd sent him her daily report.

"Dr. Terven," he said graciously as they entered, standing to hold out a hand to her.

"Director," she said, shaking it.

Another man also stood at their entrance, but his eyes were on Edward.

Straker stopped in his tracks. "Ford?"

"Commander Straker!" the man said with a smile, coming forward to shake his hand.

Once he was closer, he could see that it wasn't the lieutenant as he had first thought. "You're not Keith Ford."

The man's smile widened. "No, sir. I'm one of his descendants. David Ford, at your service."

Daja peered closely at the man. Edward was looking very bemused, and she wondered why?

The director said cordially, "Won't you be seated? We have much to discuss." He turned to the colonel, who stood just inside the door. "That will be all, Col. Bishop."

"Yes, sir."

Once the door closed behind the colonel, the director hit a button on his desk to lock it. He sat back in his chair and said, "Thank you both for coming. This meeting is classified at the highest level. What I will be sharing with you is not to be repeated anywhere under any circumstances. Understood?"

They both agreed, but Daja's heart sank. What did all this secrecy mean? And why was the other man here?

"Twenty-seven days ago, a vessel was sighted in our upper atmosphere on a crash heading for the surface. It never registered on our outer defense network. It simply appeared inside our inner grid without warning of any kind. We registered its trajectory and immediately dispatched medics to the scene. When we arrived, we found the ship crushed beyond repair. Three bodies were recovered. One was dead, and the other two were brought to a nearby hospital for treatment."

He turned to Straker and said, "You were one of the two we found alive."

"What happened to the other one?" Straker asked.

The director's lips tightened for a moment. "Eventually he was handed over to the proper authorities to be dealt with."

"What authorities might those be?" he persevered.

"Me," said David Ford.

"I see." And as he met the man's eyes, he didn't need to ask anything more about that. He turned back to the director and said, "Do you know how I got here?"

The director glanced over at Ford, who said, "We believe that the lever you pulled was indeed a temporal device of some sort, which caused an explosion onboard the craft that catapulted it through time to the present."

"We assumed that must be the situation," Daja said. "Is there anything other than conjecture to back it up?"

"We have the evidence of Commander Straker's presence, Doctor," said Ford. "He was reported as Missing in Action on April 8, 1985. No one expected to ever see him again – at least, not alive." He met the commander's eyes for a moment of silent communication, then turned back to the doctor. "The mere fact that he is here now is enough evidence to support the theory of a temporal device."

"Commander?" she said, raising a brow at Edward.

He smiled calmly back at her, which caused her to mutter under her breath. "Mr. Nobody, indeed!"

"What you don't know," the director said, taking the conversation back into his own hands. "Is that when that ship appeared, it wasn't alone. An entire armada of ships was close behind it just outside our inner defense grid."

"How many ships?" Straker asked with a frown.

Again the director deferred to his guest.

"Thirty-seven," Ford answered. "Fortunately, we were able to engage them before they got any closer. We destroyed them with very few losses to our own fleet."

Straker continued to frown. "Are you saying that the temporal device onboard the ship I was on somehow forced their entire armada to come along with us through time?"

"There is ample evidence to support that theory," Ford said. "Many races we have encountered over the past centuries as we have explored our sector and the surrounding ones use interconnectivity as a way of maneuvering their ships in times of battle. If their operating computers are synchronized, it makes them much more powerful opponents, because ships without such capabilities lose valuable time trying to keep track of each other."

Daja's brows drew together. "But – wait a minute. Wouldn't such a system rebound on them? I mean, if you destroyed one of their ships, wouldn't they all then be destroyed in a chain reaction?"

"They'd have failsafes in place to keep that from occurring," Edward assured her. "Although it's doubtful that they'd consider moving through time as a unit something to guard against."

He turned to Ford. "Then they had their entire fleet of ships ready and waiting to take Earth out once they had me and Alec out of the way."

"Yes, Commander Straker," said Ford. "And you single-handedly stopped them."

"Well, that doesn't surprise me in the least," said Daja with a grin.

Straker's lips twitched. "So, what happens now?"

Ford and the director looked at each other a moment, as if to decide who would answer that question. Then the director sat back and said, "You will go with Commander Ford to a secure facility where you will be debriefed on the incident. Afterward, I am quite certain that a place will be found for you in their organization."

"And what organization is that?" Straker asked.

Commander Ford grinned. "SHADO."

"What's Shadow?" Daja said curiously.

"Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization," Edward answered automatically.

Commander Ford's eyes twinkled. "Actually, sir. If I may correct you. These days it stands for Supreme Headquarters Alliance Defense Organization."

Straker's wry smile appeared. "It seems as though I have some catching up to do."

"I'm sure it won't take you long at all, sir," Ford assured him. "Do you have any further questions before we go?"

"Yes. I'm curious why Dr. Terven is here in a meeting that is surely classified far beyond her authorization level? What are your plans for her?"

Daja started in surprise, not having taken that fact into account during the last overwhelming hour. Then she looked at Edward. Trust her powerful guardian to be looking out for her well-being!

Commander Ford smiled and turned to her. "Dr. Terven, forgive me. I did not mean to ignore your presence. I'm afraid I was just so pleased to meet Commander Straker that I forgot all about you for a moment."

She smiled, giving Edward a look from the corner of her eyes. "Not at all, Commander. I completely understand. He does tend to have that effect on people. So, what did you wish to discuss with me?"

He leaned forward earnestly, putting his arms on the side of the director's desk as he said, "Our head psychiatrist is on the verge of retiring and has been searching for someone with the right qualifications to replace him. He has been pleased with your work with the commander and indeed, your record as a whole. He spoke to me about the possibility of you as his replacement, and I wholeheartedly agree with him. You would do very well in our organization. Will you consider it?"

She looked from him to her director, who studiously avoided her gaze. She had to suppose that Leon wasn't very happy to have his best psychiatrist stolen from him. Then she glanced at Edward. He was smiling tenderly at her. She turned back to Commander Ford. "Of course, Commander. When do I start?"


End file.
